You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.

You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.

I’d go from film to film and almost detach from one world and jump in another. I was living as these people and not having a self. I didn’t know who I was. And things just get really dark.

Single life is so overrated.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.

Face your fears and doubts, and new worlds will open to you.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

I’d always somehow felt slightly as if I’d been born in the wrong country.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

The best part about being in your thirties is you know what works for you.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

I’m not lesbian; I’m not bisexual; I’m not straight. I’m just curious.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

My life is my message.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

One of the things you’re doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That’s the biggest risk I’ve taken so far.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Everybody has a purpose.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.